Using Shopify has become the easiest way to sell online, even for those without great experience and skills in e-commerce creation. But the commerce platform offers much more than just e-commerce and provides many valuable tools for managing and promoting your online store.
Building e-commerce from scratch to constantly manage and update can be complex and very expensive, especially for those without the necessary skills. Shopify aims to simplify your e-commerce creation, management, and promotion. However, you cannot sell certain products through Shopify.
Products You Can’t Sell on Shopify
If you sell any of the following products in your business (even legal in your location), Shopify will not allow you to sell them in any way:
- Tobacco and E-cigarettes: If your company deals with cigarettes and derivatives, you cannot sell them through Shopify.
- Alcohol: One of the products that the Shopify platform prohibits for sale is alcohol.
- Fireworks: You can’t sell them on Shopify, even if they’re legal to sell in your location.
- Weapons: Shopify has banned anything related to weapons and their derivatives, even the sale of knives.
- Benzene, gasoline, and kerosene: You cannot sell solvents class products on this platform.
- Drugs: Pharmacy products can’t do business on Shopify either. In addition, the sale of research chemicals, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals are wholly prohibited on this platform.
- Game tickets: The platform has banned currency in video games or online game credits. Only the real game owners can sell the money in the games.
- Mask and disinfectant: Shopify has recently suspended many memberships that sell masks and disinfectants.
What to Sell on Shopify
To determine the success or failure of e-commerce, there is the choice of product to sell and many other factors. However, product sourcing is one of the most critical stages when opening e-commerce. There’re three main ways to market on Shopify and they’re:
- Production and sale of customized products
- Wholesale
- Sale of dropshipping products
It’s also possible to sell both physical and digital products. Online courses and lectures, experiences, and counseling are also possible. Shopify is also suitable for selling strictly intangible products such as membership registrations, professional advice, digital content, online education, and concert and event tickets. As for dropshipping, the end customer can get the products directly from the supplier. In this case, you will not need specialized warehouses to manage stocks and goods to sell physical products. That’s why online dropshipping or wholesale is possible even with Shopify.